Amazon MGM Studios has dropped Luca Guadagnino‘s upcoming film about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Reports, originating in Puck on Friday, say that the Andrew Garfield-starrer will now be shopped to other studios.
The timing is, well, interesting: It comes only a few months after the news that Amazon has invested $50 billion in the artificial intelligence research and deployment company as part of a “multi-year strategic partnership” that will accelerate OpenAI’s consumption of Amazon Web Services.
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” a spokesperson for Amazon told THR. “We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.”
Guadagnino, who is said to have almost completed the film, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from THR when approached.
Described as a Social Network-esque feature, Artificial stars Englishman Garfield as Altman in a story recounting the tumultuous period at OpenAI in 2023 that saw Altman fired and rehired in a matter of days. Its supporting cast includes Anora breakout Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder who led the movement to get rid of Altman, Monica Barbaro as chief technology office Mira Murati, and Ike Barinholtz as Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
The movie marked Guadagnino and Amazon MGM’s third collaboration, following After the Hunt, starring Garfield with Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri, and 2024’s Challengers.
Altman and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos are reportedly friendly; the AI behemoth was among the high-profile guests at the latter’s Venice wedding to Lauren Sanchez last year.
